


Now that you're my history

by ilien



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Coping, Death of a loved one, Deathfic, Depression, Eating Disorders, Grief, I'm Sorry, Like Whoa, M/M, Mental Health Issues, No Beta, There's No Fix, actually, and moving on, and not coping, because it is, did I mention it's a deathfic?, i literally killed yurochka, tell me if i missed a tag, there's some recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-05 21:51:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11022303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilien/pseuds/ilien
Summary: In their line of work, everyone's half-expected to break their neck or bang their head a little too hard on the ice; everyone accepts that risk.That's not what happened to Yura.





	Now that you're my history

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry. This is very much not what I intended to post today, not how I wanted to break my writing block and not what I'd choose to write if I had a choice. But sometimes I can't help it, it'll eat me from the inside if I don't share it. 
> 
> Some messed up depressed part of me read WTTM last night and saw hints that Yuri's not going to live to the next GPF. And then that part of me wouldn't listen to reason and wouldn't let me sleep (and I have WORK today) until I let it all out. So, I did, and now someone else might get hurt because of it. I'm sorry. Really, don't read if deathfics aren't your thing. 
> 
> I promise I have a cute and sweet WIP where everything's beautiful and nothing hurts. I just need to get over THIS to get back to that story.

After the funeral, Yuri's husband starts calling him "Katsuki", like it's now impossible for him to put the two syllables of his given name together in one word. Katsuki doesn't blame him; he starts referring to himself as Katsuki, too, and flinches every time he hears “Yuri”; very soon everyone knows not to call him that.

Right after Yuri's death, Victor slept for two days; he just went to bed and only woke up to go to the bathroom. Katsuki watched him sleep, walked Maccachin and made Victor drink water every time he woke up; he himself couldn't sleep at all ever since he'd woken up in the middle of the night after they heard the terrible news and for a few blissful seconds believed it was all just a nightmare. The feeling that came with the realisation that the dream wasn’t a dream was almost worse than everything else, so he couldn’t close his eyes anymore.

But then again, he had managed to get some sleep before that. Victor hadn't slept for the entire last week. Back then, when Yuri was still alive and it felt like there was still hope (there wasn’t; the doctors had been very clear about that), Victor spent the entire week by Yuri's side. The hospital didn't allow 24-hour visitations, but he was Victor Nikiforov, and there was nothing in the entire Russia his name and money couldn't do. He was there with Yura day and night, sitting beside him, holding his hand, stroking his hair, only letting Otabek and Katsuki sit with them, or replace him for an hour or two a day. Yura wasn't conscious through most of it, but sometimes he'd wake up, and Vitya would tell him he loves him, and Yura would scowl and tell him to get lost, he was not-

When he was, Victor stopped for two days.

He had to wake up eventually; he had to get up and start dealing with the world; he had to arrange the cremation and the funeral; he had to negotiate with Yuri's mother (who arrived just in time to see her son alive for an hour) over meaningless things like which graveyard it will be and what his gravestone would say. He lost all the negotiations, because he has no ground to stand on; she's his mother.

In their line of work, everyone's half-expected to break their neck or bang their head a little too hard on the ice; everyone accepts that risk. 

That's not what happened to Yura. He'd won gold on Europeans and Worlds, he'd been on top of the world when he came back to St. Petersburg and started working on his next season. He caught a cold just before his grandfather's heart attack, but kept coming to practice every day; the cold became pneumonia after the funeral, but he told no one, just kept eating antibiotics (it's ridiculous how easy it is to get antibiotics without prescription in St.Petersburg) like candy and practising, as hard as ever. 

Then he just collapsed on the ice one day. The doctors said - exhaustion. Drug-resistant pneumonia. Anorexia, going back years. Liver failure. No one said the s-word, because that wouldn't be fair to him; he didn’t know what he was doing to himself, but - Yakov retired the day the doctors ran him through the list of diagnoses. Lilia dragged her two other students to a psychiatrist, like that could change something. Maybe it did, for them.

They keep training; keep saying that's what Yuri would have wanted; that's what he did want. Without Yakov, Otabek's coach stays in Piter with them, and together with Katsuki, who knows more than anyone else about mental illness, and therefore feels obligated to protect his rinkmates, they manage to keep everyone from major injuries; they're not aiming at anything more at this point. 

Otabek's the one who trains the hardest, and while everyone else falls and falls and falls and doesn’t seem to do anything right, he perfects the routines he and Yuri choreographed together, with maniacal determination. Mila and Georgi lower the difficulties of their programs by a good amount of points, and still struggle with them. Victor can't land a single quad, and Katsuki—can only land quads. Anything less than that sends him flying all over the ice, not in a good way. His steps are a mess. His rotations give him motion sickness.

Victor keeps giving him odd looks each time he lands a quad, but that’s the last thing on Katsuki's mind now. His husband’s looks are the last thing on his mind.

Somehow, they survive until the season starts, anyway. If asked, Katsuki's pretty sure no one will manage to recall how they got from the end of July to September.

Rostelecom Cup takes place in Moscow, and Yuri's portraits are all over the city; for the duration of the competition it looks like the entire city—entire country, entire world—is mourning.

Otabek is the only one who skates a perfect routine. In his short program, he lands all of his jumps, delivers an excellent presentation, and—breaks the world record. Yuri's world record. Right in the beginning of his season. Katsuki knows what that means even before Otabek announces, the night after the program, that he's not going to finish the season; he’s not even going to complete Rostelecom. He doesn't leave Moscow right away; he stays to see all of them skate (Katsuki and Victor got sorted into Rostelecom, too), and goes to Vagankovo every day.

Yuri's gravestone is a large marble monument with an engraved portrait of Yuri in his Agape costume. Victor argued that it should have been Yuri in his GPF exhibition skate outfit, because that's what he would have wanted, but she's his mother, and Victor's not even a relative. Katsuki was there through the entire heated discussion, but had no say in it at all; Yuri's mother doesn't speak English, and Katsuki’s Russian isn’t even remotely good enough, especially now. 

Russian graveyards are peculiar: each grave has a waist-high fence, and the tiny metal gate is locked with a big padlock. Yuri's mother gives one of the keys to Victor, in a gesture of reconciliation, but he surrenders it to Otabek and never comes back there.

Katsuki wins Rostelecom, because he still can't land triples and has to swap them for quads, and also no one can see that the spins make him dizzy, and also the judges pretend not to notice that his hands shake all the time. Everyone's hands shake now, so they just ignore that.

Victor doesn't attempt any quads and falls on each of his triples. He gets the last place and looks almost relieved. Katsuki would have liked to opt out of GPF, too, but he remembers how Yuri confessed that he'd won last year just to make sure he doesn't retire, and he can't let Yura down like that. He and Victor don’t talk about it, because they hardly talk at all anymore.

Victor still goes to the Cup of China, and Katsuki's Skate Canada is less than a week later, so he goes to Canada alone. It's the longest flight in his entire life. JJ meets him at the airport, wearing sunglasses and an oversized hoodie, but even without the precautions no one would probably recognise him. He's grown a beard that's never seen a trimmer or a pair of scissors, and he looks - almost like Victor. The same empty eyes and blank expression. Katsuki doesn't ask why Yuri's death hit Leroy so hard since they were barely civil; he thinks he understands.

JJ invites him to stay at his apartment instead of the hotel, mentioning that his wife is spending some time with her parents, and Yuri doesn't say no. 

JJ's apartment occupies an entire floor, and it's unbelievably empty. 

Phichit arrives later that night and gets to JJ's on his own; he's been here before. He takes one look at the two of them, drops his bags on the floor at the door and hugs them both at the same time; just cradles them both with his arms and lets Katsuki hide his face in his neck. 

That's the first time Katsuki cries, huge, ugly tears and painful sobs that don't seem to stop. JJ and Phichit cry, too, and that somehow makes it feel like it's—not bearable, no, but like something he might survive.

They fall asleep still clinging to each other on JJ's bed, not bothering to unmake it or take off their clothes. They help each other with razors and haircuts the next morning; by the time they have to leave for practice they almost look presentable.

The three of them take the podium a week later: Katsuki gets the gold, Phichit silver and JJ bronze.

The last thing he expects when he gets home is for Victor, who came in fourth in China, to throw it in his face.

“You just keep going, like it's no big deal," his husband screams. "Did you even get upset? Did you shed at least one tear when our Yura— Did he mean anything to you, at all? Or are you happy to get rid of competition? I thought you loved him! Did you know he was in love with you? And your fucking dog meant more to you than him!"

Katsuki listens to him scream, and theoretically understands that it's not his husband talking, it's his grief and pain just as unbearable as Katsuki's own; more unbearable, even, although that hardly seems possible. It's pain, and guilt, and exhaustion—but Katsuki reaches a point where he can't listen to it anymore, so he just picks up his still unpacked suitcase and backpack with his passport, his laptop and his wallet, and leaves, shutting the door carefully behind him.

He calls Georgi and asks him to keep an eye on Victor. He knows it's too much to ask; Gosha's already looking after Mila, and it’s been hard on both of them. But it's not like Katsuki would entrust Victor’s safety to Yakov or Lilia, and he doesn’t know anyone else in this city.

After a few hours, Katsuki finds himself sitting on the pavement on Malaya Sadovaya, staring at a bronze cat on the moulding of one of the buildings. The cats on Malaya Sadovaya were the first thing Yuri showed him in the city; they were Yura’s favourite thing about Piter. Katsuki looks at the one of the cats, then on the other on the opposite side of the street, and knows now that if he doesn't get away from this city, he'll keep coming back here every day, waiting for Yuri to kick him in the back and demand to stop brooding.

He thinks of going home to Hasetsu, but Yuri's there, as much as he is on Malaya Sadovaya. He considers going to JJ, but the man needs to move on by himself; he's got a wife to get back to. He thinks of calling Phichit, knowing that both Phichit and Celestino would always welcome him wholeheartedly, but—he’s not sure he can handle their sympathy, just yet.

He ends up on a train to Moscow. Mila told him in June, when they all were still alive, that if you live in Moscow, you run from your problems to Piter, and vice versa. He thinks, without any humor, that that's one way of going native.

For Katsuki, Yuri was never in Moscow. He was born there, and he’s buried there now, buy his home was in Piter, and Katsuki knew him in Piter. Moscow is just a place.

Katsuki lived in Detroit, so Moscow doesn't intimidate him; it’s just loud, aggressive and multilingual, like any other big city. He checks in to a hotel (the first one he finds available on Booking.com while still on the train), and works on finding a rink for himself to keep training. He's coachless now, but he's still got a spot in GPF, so he owes it to Yuri to at least try. This year he’s got almost a month between Skate Canada and the final.

CSKA agree to have him for a couple of months; one of the coaches even volunteers to keep an eye on him to help him avoid injuries. He knows everyone in figure skating is aware of what's going on; he knows they're helping him out of pity, but for once, he doesn't care, and takes what he's given.

He finds a hotel twenty minutes’ walk away from CSKA and moves in there. It just so happens that Vagankovo is twenty minutes the other way, and there's a direct bus route from the rink to the graveyard.

He doesn’t intend to go there at all, but ends up coming back every evening after practice. He hasn't got a key, so he just stands outside, his hand on the cold marble, his head going blank. At least, here he doesn’t expect to hear Yura’s mocking voice behind him. Almost doesn’t.

There are always fresh flowers on the grave, and a lot of them, along with cards, stuffed tigers and cat ears. Katsuki never brings any flowers and never meets the fans who bring them, but there’s always something new in the pile of flowers and toys every day.

One night when he comes there, someone is inside the fence, picking up the cards and rearranging the toys and flowers. It's dark, and Katsuki's been in need of a new pair glasses for a couple of months now, but he knows who that is anyway.

"We shouldn't stay too long," Otabek tells him, without raising his head from the flowers. "A couple of Yuri's angels come here every day, and they're giving us space. They're just going to wait until we leave, and then—they're fifteen-year-old girls, in winter, at night, at the graveyard."

The thought never occurred to Katsuki. He picks up a pink toy tiger and hesitantly puts it next to the other toys Otabek's just arranged. The toys stare at them with their empty plastic eyes. 

Together, they tidy up the rest of the flowers, put the cards in a neat pile, and leave, locking the small gate. 

"Do you want the key?" Otabek asks, and Katsuki shakes his head. The key is significant to Otabek somehow, but in itself means nothing to Katsuki.

"Are you in Moscow for long?" Otabek asks as they pass the graveyard gate.

"Until GPF, I think," he replies. "You?"

"I think I'm staying here."

Katsuki's probably staring, because Otabek explains, "I took Yuri to Kazakhstan last spring. I can't—" he doesn't finish, but that's so close to how Katsuki feels about Hasetsu that he just nods, stunned with the sudden feeling of being not alone in this. Even with JJ and Phichit, he still felt like they were having three different breakdowns, instead of one shared grief.

"Dinner?" Otabek asks. "I know a place."

Katsuki's been living on protein bars and lettuce leaves since Victor fell asleep, but he doesn't miss food. He'll probably never touch katsudon ever again.

He nods, anyway. He might not miss food, but he realises that he might be missing company.

They go to a small Hinkalnaya that's almost across the street from Katsuki's hotel, and Katsuki lets Otabek order for him. The taste is unfamiliar, and that's a good thing. Katsuki doesn't know if he enjoys it.

"Where are you staying?" Otabek asks as they leave, and Katsuki gestures at his hotel.

"What? That's a horrible place! Do you have any idea who stays there? It’s been a place for mafia and sex workers since forever!"

Katsuki didn’t know that. He never noticed anything, and his room is okay. "It's close to the rink," he explains.

"Dinamo?" Otabek guesses, probably because that’s the closest big rink to the hotel.

"CSKA," Katsuki corrects.

"Two stops further, then." Otabek nods and takes a breath. "I have a proposal for you. You don't have to agree."

Katsuki looks at him.

"I've got an apartment over there," he nods at one of the buildings they passed on their way here. "It's two-bedroom. I didn't care what it was back then, as long as it was close to—anyway. Now I have a spare room. We could split the rent. It's cheaper than that place you've got, probably much cleaner and safer, and just one bus stop further from your rink."

Katsuki moves his suitcase to Otabek's the same day, stopping by the cash machine to get a month's worth of his rent share. It's only two weeks until GPF, but they agree that if Katsuki still has no place to go after it, he'll come to Moscow.

It's been almost two weeks since he left Piter, and he hasn't heard from Victor. He hasn't heard from Gosha, either, so he believes Victor is at least physically all right. He still doesn't have it in himself to call first, but he never takes off his ring, either.

He keeps training, and Andrei, his stand-in coach, every day looks a little less like he's constantly ready to call an ambulance.

Otabek is a perfect roommate: not as messy as Victor, not as loud as Phichit. He used to love Victor's messes and Phichit's endless optimism, but he wouldn't be able to stand them now; he could hardly stand Victor before their breakdown.

After three days of silently watching Katsuki swallow protein bars for dinner, Otabek tells him, with the same grim expression he always wears, to work out a meal plan. Katsuki doesn't have enough strength to argue, so he calls Andrei, and with his assistance does as he's told. He doesn't have to follow it, anyway; he's not going to cook or go for groceries; he's too tired for that.

In the morning he wakes up to find his breakfast on the kitchen table, alongside with a note that says, "Eat!" 

He eats.

During training, he falls doing a quad. Andrei checks him for injuries, but finding none, he gives him a wide smile and suggests to try triples. He falls on them, too, but that's nothing new. When it’s time for lunch, Andrei force-feeds him the meal they’d agreed on.

Otabek doesn't go to the graveyard again, and neither does Katsuki, now that he doesn’t have to come back to an empty hotel room. Katsuki still doesn’t eat when he’s alone, but both Otabek and Andrei keep feeding him whenever they’re around at lunchtime. When Otabek knows no one will be there, he packs Katsuki’s meal for him. Katsuki never eats the packed meals, and feels only a little guilty. He feels like he’s constantly full anyway, and he misses the emptiness in his stomach.

Otabek works as a DJ and Katsuki never learns his schedule; sometimes he’s out all night, and sometimes home for days in a row. He seems to be very well-adjusted, compared to the rest of them. For a minute—just a minute, not a second longer—Katsuki wonders if Otabek's feelings for Yuri were as deep as they looked. Then he remembers Victor's accusations and feels painfully ashamed.

When there's a week left to the final, Katsuki realises he still hasn’t decided anything about his exhibition. His costumes for competitions are still with him, neatly packed in his suitcase, but his exhibition was supposed to be with Victor. In the end, he settles on doing nothing at all, because he probably won’t medal, anyway, given his rediscovered ability to fuck up quads. Neither Andrei nor Otabek mention anything about his exhibition.

Otabek offers to come to the Final with him, and Katsuki almost takes him up on it, but there's something in his expression, something painful and terrified. Moscow is Otabek's safe place right now, Katsuki realises, and the GPF is anything but safe. He refuses with as much conviction as he can master. 

Andrei takes him to the airport and pats him on the back as he leaves. He doesn't wish him luck or try to cheer him up, and Katsuki appreciates that.

Chris meets him in Stockholm, even though he never told anyone—not even Otabek, because he knew he'd try something like this—which plane he's taking. Chris is exactly as he was before, a bright smile and dirty jokes; he squeezes Katsuki’s ass, kisses him on the cheek, and keeps his arm around him all the time. Katsuki now knows a lot better than to assume anything about how anyone feels based on his smiles, but he doesn't bother to smile back or return the hug.

Chris keep chattering all the way to the hotel, not shutting up for a second. He talks about the weather, the hot Swedish men, the adorable language, his new sweater — Katsuki eventually tunes him out. He's never been to Stockholm, but he tunes the city out, too.

At the hotel, Katsuki thanks Chris for the ride as the receptionist is preparing his key. He knows Chris probably meant to keep looking out for him, and perhaps Katsuki wouldn't mind, but Chris's got his own competition to worry about, and his own grief to deal with, the way Katsuki cannot share. Katsuki wouldn't ask him to coddle him, on top of all that.

Chris looks almost hurt when Katsuki indicates he's about to leave, but then just turns thoughtful. "Give him a chance, okay?" He asks quietly. "You don't have to, he's an idiot, but can you try?"

Katsuki nods. His wedding ring is still on, after all.

After that, he half-expects for Victor to show up at his hotel room, but he doesn't. He's alone for the night for the first time since he moved in with Otabek, but for some reason, he doesn't feel as hollow as he was feeling in Moscow and didn’t even notice.

He opens the mini-bar, finds a variety of little bottles of alcohol and full-sized bars of chocolate, and opts for the chocolate. He munches on a Snickers bar and fights the pang of guilt by reminding himself that Andrei told him he needed to gain a bit weight, anyway.

Victor shows up when he's practising on the ice the next morning. He just skates up to him after he fails to land one of his triples and tells him that his ‘point of gravity is off’. Katsuki's heard that before from Andrei, and it's not like he didn't know himself that there was something wrong with his balance. He tells Victor as much.

"Who's Andrei?" Victor asks. 

"My coach in Moscow," Katsuki answers, and he's aware that this is him picking up a fight, but he just can't help it.

"I'm your coach," Victor says, and it's a perfect opening, but suddenly Katsuki notices two things. One, Victor's hands are shaking. Two, there's no ring. All fight drains out of him.

"Victor, could you please go?" He asks quietly. "I need to concentrate and you're distracting me."

Victor turns around and leaves, just like that. Yuri keeps practising, and his balance is as off as always, but he lands one of his quads twice.

When he comes back to his room after a quiet lunch with JJ, Victor is sitting on the floor beside his room door. He's hugging his legs, knees to his forehead, and he's obviously been here a while. For a second, Katsuki considers turning around and going back to JJ.

Then Victor raises his head, and his eyes are wet. Katsuki's used to seeing Victor cry by now, he hardly remembers him any other way anymore, but he can't intentionally be mean to him when he cries.

"Come on, let's go inside," he says as he unlocks the door. Victor stands up with none of his usual grace and follows him into the room. 

"Please, forgive me," Victor begs, as soon as the door slams shut behind him. "I was an idiot, all you did was take care of me, of all of us, when no one else would, and I said horrible things to you. I didn't mean them."

"Yes, you did," Katsuki comments, but he doesn't feel any anger. Instead, it's relief that he finally gets to say this. "You meant them, and you kept it all inside and let that hurt you on top of everything, and when it broke out, it got ugly. And I was holding it together, barely, and even thought I was getting better after that night with JJ, but when you said that—I just couldn't keep telling myself wasn't not you, just the grief. I did that as long as I could, but then I couldn’t.”

“I’m sorry.” Victor sobs. “I’m so sorry. Please, please, please find it in yourself to forgive me someday.”

“I’ve already forgiven you,” Katsuki whispers, surprising himself, both with the words and with how true they are. “I’m hurting, I’m still barely holding it together, but I’m not mad at you.”

Victor takes a step in his direction, then another one. Katsuki takes a step back, because this is not over yet. “Where’s your ring, Victor?” He demands.

Victor looks down at his hand, as if he sees it for the first time, then looks at Yuri's, where his ring is still intact, and reaches for his chest. The ring is on a gold chain around his neck.

“I didn’t know if you’d want me to wear it anymore,” he confesses, and takes it off the chain. 

“Vitya. If I ever want you to stop wearing it, I’ll ask for it back.” That isn't a threat, it’s a reassurance, and Victor gets that. 

He takes the ring from Victor’s left hand, takes Victor’s right, and puts the ring where it belongs.

Victor pulls him in his arms, kisses him—but it’s not over, it’s still not over. His husband touches his arms, then his back—and takes a step back, going absolutely pale. Then, like he’s under some kind of charm, he peels Katsuki’s jacket off, and then his t-shirt, and it’s very obviously not a sexy undressing.

Katsuki stands in front of Victor and feels his gaze on his chest, his stomach, his arms. He can see Victor can barely breathe, but still has no idea what’s going on.

“Yuri,” Victor whispers at last, voice small and terrified, “Have you been eating?”

Katsuki looks down on himself. He hasn’t done that in a while, and now he sees what Victor means. He sees why Andrei and Otabek were feeding him so obsessively, and why JJ made him eat three servings of that salad. 

There’s quite literally not an inch of fat on him; he’s all skin and muscle. And there’s not nearly as much muscle as there used to be, and it looks—after all that happened, it looks—bad is not quite the word. He has noticed his clothes were too baggy on him, but he never realised how awful it got.

“I lived on two protein bars a day until two weeks ago,” he admits. “Then Andrei and Otabek started feeding me. I guess it isn’t showing yet,” he smiled, embarrassed.

“Or it was even worse.”

He thinks of Yura. Of how horrified they all were when they found out how everyone missed something so unspeakably terrible. Of how any one of them losing weight will give the others terrible flashbacks for the rest of their life, and how it’s even worse if it’s him, with his well-known to his friends history of mental illness. He feels devastatingly guilty.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’ll… eat more.”

“Yuri,” Victor whispers. “You don’t have anything to apologise for. We’ve all been coping terribly. You’ve been taking care of all of us. It was my job to look after you.”

“Your brother died,” Katsuki whispers. “He wasn’t your blood, but he was your only family, and we’re to blame for what happened.” It’s the first time he says it all out loud. 

“Not my only family. And not only _my_ brother,” Victor says. “Yuri, look at me.”

Katsuki looks up, and only then realises that Victor’s been calling him Yuri. He still doesn’t refer to himself that way; somewhere along the way Victor, who was a complete mess just a month ago, managed more healing than he did. 

Victor kisses him. This time, it’s over. Or just begins. 

“But at least now we know what’s messing with your balance,” Victor gives him a teary grin. “Your body image is off. You’re spending the rest of the day in front of the mirror, naked. Coach’s orders. And telling me all about Andrei, Otabek, and ‘that night with JJ.’ Husband’s orders.”

Katsuki doesn’t smile, but he feels lighter than he has in a lifetime.

The next day, he gets fourth place with his short program. He knows he’s messing up badly and only getting so high because everyone else is, too. Minami is the first on the ice, and remains in first place after JJ, who skates last, gets his scores. The kid looks miserable, embarrassed and apologetic, and not at all as happy with his first GPF as he’s supposed to be, at his age. 

Katsuki still doesn’t use his own given name, still catches himself looking for Yura’s face in the crowd, and still can’t skate for himself. But his free program, he skates for Minami, to kick the kid off his first place and wipe that frown off his face. Chris seems to have the same idea, and kicks them both down. So that’s how they finish: Chris with gold, Katsuki with silver, Kenjiro with bronze. Phichit’s perfectly content with the fourth place (he insists he actually loves his ‘loser gold’), JJ is fifth, and Georgi is the last; Katsuki can’t help but blame that on himself, for damping what was left of the team on Gosha’s shoulders.

He skates his free program for Minami, but his exhibition is still for Plisetsky. He ends up skating to Agape, wearing his plain training gear, because that seems the most appropriate. He loses himself in the middle of it, and when he finally stops, tears running uncontrollably down his face, Yuri gets a standing ovation.

**Author's Note:**

> "Piter" is the way most people in Moscow and St. Petersburg refer to St. Petersburg. No one really calls it Saint-Petersburg unless they're advertising a guided tour.
> 
> "Vagankovo" is a graveyard in the centre of Moscow. A lot of famous people are buried there.
> 
> The place where Katsuki Yuri ends up in Moscow is a real place: the hotel, the graveyard and two ice rinks are really there, although I'm not sure that the hotel still has the reputation it used to have in the nineties. Katsuki is very good with Russian search engines by now (although I have no idea how he managed to persuade CSKA to take him in), and he really does find a hotel almost exactly between his new rink and the graveyard. What he doesn't know, though (and Otabek probably does), is that one bus stop away from the hotel on the way to his rink, there was a third, smaller ice rink that hardly exists anymore, but ten years ago it was still active, and Yuri Plisetsky first skated on that rink. Katsuki passes that place every time he walks to CSKA and has no idea.
> 
> The cats in Piter are real, as well. The rest of the facts, such as competition schedules and locations, as well as magically appearing rinks and coaches, are made up with very little research.
> 
> I'm trying to edit this disaster, one random sentence at a time, now that I'm kind of over the initial shock of writing it. If you find any typos or silly mistakes, please, let me know; I know there are lots of those.


End file.
